Resources for Visitors with Dementia and Their Care Partners

The Metropolitan Museum of Art welcomes people with dementia and their care partners. Consult the Visit section for more information about how to get to the Museum and planning your visit. Detailed information about accommodations for visitors with disabilities and helpful hints will make your visit as smooth as possible. For a thorough guide to visiting the Museum with a person with dementia, including suggestions for looking at art together, please consult the Resource for Care Partners (PDF).

Recommended Itinerary

We recommend you enter the Museum at Fifth Avenue and 81st Street, through the Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center for Education. This entrance tends to be less busy than the main entrance at 82nd Street. It is also level with the plaza in front of the Museum and therefore has no steps. Wednesday and Thursday mornings are often less busy than other times of the week. In general, mornings are less busy than afternoons and evenings.

The Metropolitan Museum is very large, spanning four city blocks from 80th to 84th Streets. The Museum map can help you select which galleries to visit. Consider some of the following suggestions:

Galleries Nearest to the 81st Street EntranceThere is plenty to see and do in the galleries at the south end of the Museum, near the 81st Street entrance. Use the elevator in Diane W. Burke Hall in the Uris Center for Education to get to the first and second floors.

Quieter GalleriesThe Metropolitan Museum welcomes over six million visitors each year. The galleries and other public spaces can get very crowded. The following spaces are often quieter and less crowded than other parts of the Museum:

This program has been developed in consultation with the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain, Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at Columbia University.

Sights & Scents at The Cloisters has been developed in consultation with the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain, Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at Columbia University, and the Alzheimer's Association, New York City Chapter.